


Honey

by shieldings



Category: Teen Titans (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Bees, F/M, Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 16:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13011246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldings/pseuds/shieldings
Summary: She's been called a lot of names, but this one is her favorite.





	Honey

She'd never had many nicknames growing up.

 

Back home, of course, she was “your majesty,” or “Princess Koriand'r,” or sometimes “sister” or “daughter.” She only took on other names when she played pretend: she would wander alone through thick underbrush, building forts out of fallen branches and calling herself by the names of the wild animals. But as soon as she arrived home, with scraped knees and twigs in her hair, she was Koriand'r again, and Koriand'r was all that she was.

 

On Okaara, a kind, shriveled former warlord with a braided beard called her “little flower,” and told her that battle would spoil her. He said that seeing people die would change her, and that her eyes would no longer be wide, and her heart would become dirty. He told her that once you had a dirty heart, you never could become clean again, and you would only see the faces of the dead.

 

Her teachers scolded her for wandering off, and sent the old man back to his chambers where his nurses could tend to him. Koriand'r had wondered after that. She had never seen battle, but in her mind it had been glorious. Her sister promised her that war was noble, and that anything that protected Tamaran was glorious.

 

Koriand'r cried the night after she met the old man, and Kommand'r held her and petted her hair. On that night, they felt like sisters. At least, that was how Koriand'r felt. She couldn't read minds. She could only hope.

 

Of course, all that changed when Tamaran was invaded. In all that fire and blood, she became “Girl.” Girl wore a virginal white shift and kept her eyes lowered. Girl knew that her sacrifice was for the good of her people, and that if her lip trembled, that was a victory for the Citadel.

 

Girl shifted between names as the years passed. To one master, she was “pet,” and to another she was “you.” Girl shifted between languages, and each one had a different flavor in her mouth (but most of them were variations of bitterness). On the night her white shift became a lie, her name was “pure girl, sweet girl, good girl, good girl, stay still, stay quiet, don't cry--” and that planet was so far from its sun that its winters were years, and its nights were days, and her name was an ugly smear on the wall. From then on, her name was a smear.

 

Sometimes she was a number. That wasn't too bad. Sometimes, she was called by another person's name, and that was very bad. Sometimes, she had no name at all. On a planet that was riddled with artificial caverns, the wormish people spoke in smells, and she couldn't learn their language, so she was just another pair of calloused hands wearing away at the cave walls, searching for precious ores.

 

She was Koriand'r again when she hijacked an escape pod and raced at a nearly suicidal speed towards a blue planet whose name she didn't know. She became Koriand'r in the wreckage of her pod, Koriand'r standing shakily with her heart pounding like a hammer, Koriand'r with a bleeding lip that still stretched into a victorious smile.

 

Koriand'r was the name of a being that belonged to herself.

–

The Titans named her Starfire. A quick, awkward kiss with closed lips and a confused, dark-haired boy told her approximately what that name meant, and she liked it. Starfire was mighty and consuming. Starfire was what kept planets bright and alive, and Starfire was solar flares and lunar eclipses. It was a good name.

–

As the years pass, she stays Koriand'r, and she stays Starfire. Her grip on human language becomes less clumsy, although she's still far from perfect. She likes humans (especially Dick, but other humans, too). Their skin is a little too cold, and their eyes are funny-looking, but in a good way. They are cold in a way that makes her want to warm them up, rather than cringe away from them.

 

The first kiss was a natural auto-translate. Everything was literal. Koriand'r knew immediately what words and names meant, but she didn't understand the context (his name meant “hardy king,” and he was neither hardy nor a king, by any of her standards). But now, as she speaks to more humans and watches them and listens to how they talk to each other, she learns more about what their names really mean.

 

“Richard” is what he goes by when he's embarrassed, and “Dick” is what his friends call him. “Dick” also means “penis,” which is apparently very funny. When people are teasing him, they call him “Dickie,” which really doesn't mean anything, or “Dickie-bird,” which means a little bit more (but not much).

 

“Robin” is the name of a little songbird, and she likes that very much.

 

He calls her “Kory.” It's shorter and simpler than what Tamaraneans like, but he says it while smiling sweetly, and that makes it better. Everybody starts calling her that, because humans are clumsy and they stutter, and even though she thinks it's cute, they think it's embarrassing. And she likes that name, because it's still hers, and the fact that people are calling it means that they want to talk to her.

 

Kory and Dick kiss again, longer this time, and she holds him in her arms and he reminds her so much of a songbird, because humans are smaller and more fragile and so fast and pretty, and the fact that he trusts her, the fact that Dick, Robin, _whatever_ he wants to be called-- the fact that he wants to wrap his arms around her and hold her close to him, rest his head on her shoulder, even though she's got the dirty heart of someone who has seen ugly things... It's an honor.

 

And they kiss again, and again, and they let their hands touch softly without thinking, and he tells her the names of the constellations in his galaxy, and she tells him about the flying creatures from her home. Dick smiles, and he's beautiful, and she wants to protect him even though she knows he doesn't need protecting.

 

One lazy morning when it's just the two of them in the Tower, he calls her “Honey” without thinking. She repeats it. She likes the feeling of the word in her mouth, but she doesn't know what it means. She's still no good at reading in English, and she doesn't want to make a fool of herself, so she calls him “Honey” and he blushes, and she knows it's a word worth blushing over.

 

She makes Donna read the dictionary definition out loud, and it's a little startling. Apparently, honey is bug food that humans like to eat. Kory isn't the type to judge anyone about their dietary preferences (most Earth food isn't nearly spicy enough for her), but why would bug food be something worth blushing over?

 

She makes a point of finding a beehive. There's one at the local nature museum, with a glass front for children to press their grubby hands against. She stands there in a crowd of them, a little awkwardly (she has to wear big sunglasses and her hair breaks all the elastic bands she's tried to hold it down with) and watches the bees do their work.

 

It's actually wonderful. The funny little animals are so meticulous. They work away in the courtyard garden, balancing on shaky clover flowers to gather nectar, never visiting the same flower twice in a row. Then they return home, and they rest, and they climb all over their waxy castles and bump heads with each other in a sort of secret bee handshake, and they clumsily crawl into their hexagonal cubbies with their wings squished down and their rear ends wiggling, and when they back out they've left behind just a drop of dark gold.

 

She buys a small jar from the museum gift shop, and she knows how much work went into making it. Honey is precious. It's the loving work of hundreds of careful little creatures, so it's definitely something worth blushing over. She ties a spotted ribbon around it and takes it home with her.

 

“I got honey,” she announces. Dick is sitting on the couch watching some daytime drama about a lot of sad women and men on horses.

 

“We already have some in the cabinet,” he replies.

 

“No,” she says, presenting it to him. He takes it, but he still looks befuddled, so she explains, “I got honey, for _us._ ”

 

He still looks confused, so she leans down and kisses him gently on the forehead, cups his cheeks with her hands. “You're Honey, and I'm Honey. This is honey.” And she tries very hard not to laugh, because it's pretty funny. It was a clever gift choice, she thinks.

 

Something clicks in Dick's head, and he smiles brightly at her. He carefully places the jar on the coffee table, and wraps his arms around her and pulls her into a hug. She presses her cheek against his, and sighs with contentment.

 

“Honey is a special thing,” she says. “I saw how it was made, and it was artwork. Thank you.”

 

“You overthink things, sometimes,” he whispers into her hair.

 

“I like to learn,” she says. “Earth is exciting.”

 

“You're exciting,” he says.  "Honey."  


 

“You're artwork,” she says. “Honey.”

 

He laughs, but she can feel his face heating up a little. He pulls her down next to him, and they spend the rest of the afternoon watching the drama. Kory has no clue what's going on. She doesn't care.

 

She's “Honey.”

 


End file.
